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THE 



Views and Meditations 



OF 



JOHN BROWN. 



BY 



EDWARD W. WILLIAMS, 



AUTHOR OK 



AMERICUS MOOR; 



OR, 



Life Among the American Freetlmen. 



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THE 



Views and Meditations 



OR 



JOHN BROWN. 



BY 



KDWARD W. WILLIAMS, 



AUTHOR OK 



AMERICUS MOOR; 



OR, 



Life Among the American Freedmen. 







THE 

Vietos and Meditations 

— OF — 

JOHN BROWN. 



I deem it unnecessary here to give an account of 
the life of John Brown. The world knows of his 
birth, early training, his occupation and the great 
events in which he took part. But of his ideas, 
there seems to be considerable differences of opinion ; 
not, indeed, as to their purpose, but their sanity and 
practicability. After carefully studying his character 
as found in various records, I have imagined that 
the thoughts and feelings expressed in these verses 
were the views and meditations that engaged his 
life. I have, therefore, represented him on the four 
great occasions of his career. First, as leader of the 
Anti-Slavery men in their fight with the Pro-Slavery 
men in Kansas ; secondly, when after the Kansas 
struggles he met his men in Iowa, and there deter- 
mined to attack Harpers Ferry ;. thirdly, the night 
of the attack, and fourthly, before he goes to the gal- 
lows. As this is a work solely of the imagination, I 
here quote, for the attention of those who may criti- 
cise me, the words of Lord Macaulay when he was 
about to put forth a work of a similar nature: 
" The judgment passed both by the learned and by 
the unlearned on a work of the imagination will 
always depend much more oh the general character 
and spirit of such a work than on minute details." 

Edward YV. Williams, 
July 11th. Washington, D. C. 



In Kansas Just Before the First Struggle. 

1. Freedom, freedom, has been my song 

And shall be till I die, 
Or till from every Negro's tongue, 
I hear it echo by. 

2. Increase my faith, strengthen my heart, 

Almighty God my King, 

That I may ever do my part, 

May work as well as sing. 

3. The groans of thy black children 

Forever reach my ears, 
By my soul I am bidden 
To shoulder up their cares. 

4. This course, my duty, I'll pursue 

Although I feel alone, 
And fail or die my deed through you 
Will move some others on. 

5. Not for the riches of the soil 

My brothers do we come, 
We come to never let them spoil, 
With slavery as its home. 

6. The fertile e^rth, the pasturage 

Invite the toiling livers, 
But never the horde of bondage 
With masters, hounds and drivers. 

7. From tyrants its for you and me 

These treasures here to save, 
That labor true may harvest free 
What nature freely gave. 

8. Sons of my love, my own heart blood 

Around me make your stand, 
Hear now and heed my honest word, 
And mark my rising hand. 

9. Here remember all m} r teachings 

My olden views and promise, 
They are the things, the very tilings, 
I came to put in service. 

10. Sons, brothers, all, here is the spot 
To conquer or to fall, 
'Tis justice cause what e'er the lot, 
So move at duty's call. 
3 



11. If you have love for humankind 

For mercy, justice, right, 
For God's poor ones stay not behind, 
But move in haste and might. 

12. See yonder hostile masses 

Standing in battle array, 
They came to plant in Kansas, 
The seed of Southern slavery. 

13. With bayonets, guns and kettledrum 

That fill our ears and sight, 
Ah ! let us strike for freedom 
While they for slavery fight. 

14. They are fighting for a wicked cause 

Of sin and shame and lust, 
But we are for the moral laws 
And in our God we trust. 

15. Kansas alone fills not their view 

They seek the Western main, 
And may succeed if they subdue 
Us on this very plan. 

16. Then right here now in Kansas 

With these obedient hands, 
We should drive away the curse 
Of all the Southern lands. 

17. From early youth till even now 

My soul detested war, 
For love and peace I make a vow 
To all whom e'er I saw. 

18. To shed the blood of mortal man 

Of any race or clime, 
To desolate a lovely land 
Must be a moral crime. 

19. But when through evil, luck or might 

Men go to conquer men, 
The true and good possess the right 
The wronged ones to defend. 

20. Then whate'er system, men or law 

Seeks mankind to enslave, 
The true and good should open war 
For human rights to save. 



In Iowa, Where the Plan for an Attack on 

Harper's Ferry Was Explained 

and Adopted. 

1. Dear friends, let me to you relate 

A plan that I begot of yore, 
A plan to conquer, extirpate 

Slaveholding now and ever more. 

2. When I survey the times to see 

What is the best to meet our ends, 
That plan always recurs to me 
The visions of my hope extends. 

3. It drives away all doubts and fear, 

And fills my mind with prospects bright 
" l<ree now, thank God," I seem to hear ' 
From every Negro under sight. 

4. But, ah ! me what, alone am I, 

With vast designs without your heart, 
For want of help stern purpose high 
Can only play a meagre part. 

5. Contrivances for human good 

Though creatures of the greatest mind, 
Do need the all nutritious food 
Of Charities and aid combined. 

6. So gather round— stand at my back 

As you used to do in Kansas 
' Tis all I want — naught else I lack 
For God will ne'er forsake us. 

7. Not for my sake but for the cause 

Of freedom through our native land, 
The cause for which in Kansas wars 
You made such bold, successful stand. 

8. The cause for which the Pro-slave press 

Denounced us all as robbers, 
But with our God and the oppressed, 
Our names are Christian laborers. 

9. We are true " Soldiers of the Cross " 

And followers of the " Lamb," 
And Christlike try to save the lost, 
The weak, the poor and the damned. 



6 

10. But here we are too far away 

From the Hell of master and slave, 
Too distant here the one to slay, 
The other one to save. 

11. From the shores of the Atlantic, 

The Gulf and the Mississippi, 
I hear in mournful rhetoric 
The prayers of the unhappy. 

12. Hear husband, wife, "From morn to eve 

We toil and strive the live-long day 
Till evening shades our limbs relieve — 
Half-fed, half-clad, and with no pay. 

13. " Our daughters ravished 'fore our eyes, 

Our sons pursued by raging hounds, 
No hands to help them dare arise 
Even afar nor on the grounds. 

14. " Our poor little, darling infant, 

Snatched, bundled and sold away 
Hence, forever more too distant 
Upon our loving arms to lay. 

15. " We, too, will soon be sold apart, 

Never to know where each will be 
To bear through life a heavy heart, 
But ne'er each other's face to see." 

16. From the plains of old Virginia 

They beseech us, they beseech us, 
In the " cry of Macedonia 

Come over to us and help us." 

17. Hear the echo of their prayers 

Ascending unto the heaven, 
In voices of despair and tears, 

" When shall rest and peace be given." 

18. We cannot here with empty words 

Nor on the fields of Kansas, 
Perforin with noises, guns and swords 
The work that is before us. 

19. Now to conquer this great monster 

This devil of human bondage, 
We need our forces to center 
Ina place of better vantage. 



1 

20. We need our forces near enough 

Or right upon his sinful ground, 
To cut aloose his stolen serf 

And throw his wicked kingdom down. 

21. Now my plan is for us to go 

Somewhere on old Virginia soil, 
And there attack their monster foe 

There free his slave, his wealth despoil. 

22. There to begin and never cease 

Till death, yes, death or freedom come, 
We want no peace, we'll have no peace, 
Unless it come with freedom. 

23. Some think this plan too rash to take, 

Too dangerous, too difficult. 
What other effort can we make 

To reach the longed for good result ? 

24. 'Tis nigh unto a century 

Since men began to talk and write 
Against the evil of slavery 

With all their heart and all their might. 

25. When I was but a little boy 

Near fifty years or more ago, 
I used to hear with hope and joy 
That slavery soon would have to go. 

26. Our fathers, blessing to their name, 

Abolished it early and freely, 
And thought Virginia whence it came 
Would imitate them duly. 

27. But when about manhood I grew 

How changed was that opinion, 
For slavery was in open view 
Fast spreading his dominion. 

28. Rooted and fixed in the Southland 

He grew ambitious and prosperous, 
For room and power stretched his hand 
And for the future got anxious. 

29. The old Missouri Compromise 

For the time obstructed his raid, 
Confined her territorial size 

To the region his greed had made. 



30. Bound up in his legal limit 

With no one to question him there, 
He invigorated that spirit 

To tyrannize, scorn and to dare. 

31. The bad blood of his evil heart 

Found arteries West and North 
To circulate through every part 

To scatter, and bring strength forth. 

32. To rob more room in spite of law, 

Led on by evil ambition, 
He plunged us all into a war 
Upon the Mexican Nation. 

33. Our citizens of the old free states 

Are now no longer free men, 
They all obey as he dictates, 
His throne they all defend. 

34. His powers reach beyond the South, 

Far away in the Northern lakes, 
With brazen face and saucy mouth 
Our laws he alters, makes or breaks. 

35. Day after day he is growing 

In powers and immunity, 
And night after night preparing, 
To live throughout eternity. 

36. All his vices seen so often 

And talked of much more so, 
Soon they will embrace and soften 
The heart of many a foe. 

37. What else then but some mighty blow, 

Hurried on by valiant hand, 
Can this great monster overthrow 
And hurl from our good land. 

38. Just like a small poisonous tree, 

Nurtured and kept by foolish hand, 
Unnoticed in its infancy 

It flourished and weakened the land. 

39. The husbandman finds that its fruit 

Is poisonous to human taste, 
Gets his good ax and cuts the root 
With all his might and all his haste. 



40. Again I ask what other plan 

Can pull this haughty monster down 
And also raise his servant man 
From under his merciless frown. 

41. The good old Abolitionists, 

For twenty -seven years or mor^, 
To help this cause worked hardest 
Of all that labored before. 

42. Like the apostles of old time 

They worked with love and patience, 
But what they taught was too sublime 
To reach the Nation's seared conscience. 

43. Forbearing witness to the truth 

Of brotherly love and freedom 
All men, their kindred, too, forsooth 
Poured on them curse and odium. 

44. Wherever they went, far or near 

In search of mercy for the slaves 
Women and men would laugh and jeer 
Or beat their heads with stones and staves. 

45. All their lives long, through scorn and pain, 

For poor humanity they plead, 
With faith and courage, but in vain, 
For the Nation's conscience was dead. 

46. Yes, dead in sin and it to wake 

Needs some blows as well as prayers, 
Needs such a blow as men can make 
When they put away doubts and fears. 

47. You see the works of these good men 

Availed this cause no lasting good, 
'Tis even farther from the end 
Than where in infancy it stood. 

48. It is not worth a precious while 

To ponder o'er the politicians, 
For they are like the weathers child 
Too inconsistent in their missions. 

49. But from the holy Church of God 

We should expect a righteous course, 
That she would spread the truth abroad 
Of freedom pure with all her force. 



10 

50. With that good Bible in her hand 

The book for right among all men, 
This holy Church throughout the land 
Slaveholders wrong and lust defend. 

51. That rock of justice and mercy 

On which the Saviour built her, 
She wandered off in heresy 
For tyranny, slaves and lucre. 

52. " Let us then be up and doing " 

In the words of freedom's poet, 
Leave the priests and statesmen hoading 
What the sins of slavery profit. 

53. Remember Ossawatomie ; 

Think, too, of that terrible day, 
When we went against the enemy 
To engage in murderous fray. 

54. Just like a cloud they covered the plain 

Armed and equipped was every man, 
They showered volleys of shot like rain 
Upon our small and feeble band. 

55. Though few in number yet we stood 

And drove away unnumbered host, 
Their slain ones dyed the field in blood 
And the victory was our boast. 

56. Think of the night they sneaked their way 

To us, unawares, at Black Jack ; 
The thoughts of that terrible day 
Disheartened and turned them back. 

57. And as we drove Missourians 

By our valor and devotions, 
So can we shatter Virginians 
And slavery's institutions. 

58. But we will not be all alone, 

Recruits are waiting on the ground, 
Those who suffer, work and mourn 
Are ready allies to be found. 

59. With them we'll have a vantage ground 

The enemy's prop and stronghold, 
And will succeed to pull him down 
Partially and on the whole. 



11 

60. Judge not that they so long in bond 

Possess a superstitious fear, 
And could nor would not join us on 
Against the heavy load they bear. 

61. Bound up in the house of bondage, 

They are armless, helpless and weak, 
But just like animals in cage 

For open holes they long and seek ; 

62. Or like strong Sampson of the past, 

Sightless and meek they thought him weak, 
But when good fortune came at last 
He vengeance on his tyrants wreaked. 

63. So has it been with all mankind 

Whose lot in slavery was found 
They sought the good time to unbind 
The galling chains that held them down. 

64. The Negro race would do likewise, 

If chance and heip to them would go, 
Kept down by law, by men despis'd, 
How to be free they do not know. 

65. In New York city long ago 

Some one made known a " Negro Plot" 
To raze with fire the city low 

And win their freedom on the spot. 

66. Longing hard for freedom's riches, 

They began in Carolina, 
Years ago to lay in ashes 

Charleston city and its harbor. 

67. Nat Turner, the true and the brave, 

Tired waiting for rights to come, 
Aroused and led his brother slave 
To the jaws of death for freedom. 

68. These plans were nipped just in their buds 

For want of outside he lping hand, 
But yet they show much more than words 
That with our band the slave would stand. 

69. I was assured by their own mouth 

Sometime before our fight in Kansas, 
That if we should go in the South 
Their race would never forsake us. 



12 

70. Yes, hundreds of them I beheld, 

Called fugitives but were heroes, 

For tears would fall to hear them tell 

Their stories of flight and of woes. 

71. So glad were they to reach free land 

Off from the vale of human lust, 
They gave God thanks with uplift hand 
Mindless of hunger, rags and thirst. 

72. In moods of pity one would speak, 

" I run from old Virginia State, 
O'er rivers, hills, I come to seek 
Some refuge from the worst of fate. 

73. " These bruises and scars are marks I brought 

From the hands of my old master, 
Borne down by work the woods I sought, 
My sore weary limbs to shelter. 

74. " But could not stay there very long 

For hounds were soon upon my track, 
I took this way with courage strong 
To come or die ere I go back. 

75. " To rest and sleep day after day 

I made my bed in swampy wood, 
But all night long I hunt the way 
Or ramble round in search of food." 

76. Say to me not that men like these 

Would not revolt for slavish fear, 
If aid would come they would be pleased 
All the horrors of war to bear. 

77. Their struggle and their privation 

For themselves and for our country, 
Merit from this unkind Nation 
The patriots richest bounty. 

78. In all the wars our country had 

As many historians say, 
Unto its guard the blacks did add 
Without murmurings and delay. 

79. Let us go on and strike the blow 

Not blacks alone will rise and come, 
Others will come who were before 
Indifferent as to freedom. 



13 

80. Our timid friends that fear our course 

Will then shake off their doubts and fear, 
Will fall in line with all their force 
Seeking the front and not the rear. 

81. We go with gladness, oh ! my God, 

To duty where duty we see, 
Easy or hard, home or abroad, 
To do and leave the rest to Thee. 



At Harper's Ferry Just Before the Attack. 

1. The hour, the spot, are here at last 

Their purpose, cause and hope we know, 
Our duty is to hold on fast 

To all the vows we made before. 

2. To such as yield to our demand 

For freedom here and everywhere, 
In homes of safety let them stand 

And all their household comforts spare. 

3. Those who refuse us or resist, 

Be as it may by words or arms, 
Enroll their names on death's black list 
To meet their dooms at war's alarms. 

4. The blood that must be shed to-night 

Can never stain the name we bear, 
We fight for God's own holy right 
Which is to all mankind so dear. 

5. Virginia robbed it from a race 

For over two sad hundred years, 
Abused and kept it in disgrace 
Regardless of entreating tears. 

6. Those ancient tears rejoice to see 

This retributive night's advance, 
While Negro blood to you, to me, 
Is crying aloud for vengeance. 

7. Around us stand with cheering hand 

The ghost of every Negro dead, 
Each blesses the freedom we demand 
Each bids us press with zeal ahead. 



14 

8. Angels rejoice with gladness, too, 

^ While round the throne on high they stand, 
To see poor mortal men pursue 
The common foe of God and man. 

9. Though we are few in numbers now 

We trust the promise Jesus made, 
That where a few for good shall bow 
His spirit will be there to aid. 

10. The saints are singing music sweet 

All around the heavenly strand, 
To see us here as Christians meet 
To help and save our brother man. 

11. Oh ! Saviour, Angels, Saints, look on 

While we the fathers will obey, 
Befriend and comfort them that morn 
And in the dust their burdens lay. 

12. We open war at once to-night 

And liberty for all proclaim, 
We'll lead from darkness unto light 

The weak, the poor, the blind and lame. 

13. Before to-morrow's sun displays 

Its golden colors in the East, 
We'll wake slaveholders in amaze 
To breakfast on a bloody feast. 

14. My brothers what a holy war 

In which we all will soon engage, 
It will assert free equal law 
Against the tyrants of the age. 

1 5. The broken heart, the tearful eyes 

The cheerless face none sought to please, 
Will ere the morning sun arise 
Have symptoms of a time of ease. 

16. The runaways in forest wilds 

And children sold to foreign shore, 
Will soon return with happy smiles 

To see their parents, friends, once more. 

17. The screws, the lashes and the hounds 

Shall no more glut off Negro blood, 
Our forward march, our bugle sounds, 
Will scatter them as by a flood. 



15 

18. Husband and wife, daughters and son, 

Forever more shall ne'er be sold, 
Together they shall live as one 

Till choice or Heaven breaks the fold. 

19. The fertile earth shall no more yield 

Her fruits for unrequited toil, 
The riches of the harvest field 

Must be for him who tills the soil. 

20. Ye children all of Africa 

" Possess your soul " and weep no more, 
This night will force America 

To grant you all you asked of yore. 

21. The laws of God your rights ordain 

We are the instruments they send — 
To cut your way, to break your chain, 
And ages long of troubles end. 



The Morning Before He Goes to the 
Gallows. 

1. My race of life is almost run, 

Rings even now the last sad knell, 
When I must from this whole world turn 
And bid it ever more farewell. 

2. Cut off from all my works and plans, 

To leave my faithful loving ones, 
No more to hold my good wife's hands, 
Nor see my daughters and my sons. 

3. This heart must moulder in the grave 

And beat no more for fellow man, 
Can no more move these hands to save 
And purify a single land. 

4. The day, oh ! Lord, I long to see 

Is ever hidden from my sight, 
To see Thy children all set free 

And breathe the air of human right. 

5. But let me not my fate bemoan 

Oh, Father dear and King above, 
Thy will be done and not my own 
With me, my work and all I love. 



16 

6. To know and do Thy will below 

I lived and am prepared to die, 
To serve thy creatures high or low 
Where they dwell beneath the sky. 

7. It was to wipe the crime away, 

Forever more of man to man, 
That I pursued, day after day. 

The cause and charge for which I stand. 

8. I go before Thy judgment seat 

Where all my feelings, thoughts, are known, 
With naught of fear or shame to meet 
The sentence of Thy righteous throne 

9. But send Thy holy spirit, Lord, 

To comfort, strengthen those I leave, 
Teach them to know that Thou art God 
In Thee to trust and to believe. 

10. Make plain Thy ways, make known Thy will, 
That they may see, walk and obey. 
Urge, quicken them ' gainst slavery still 
To battle till the free-born day. 



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